2026 Israel-US vs. Iran conflict [Military updates/News Only]

sat images of the impact

At this point, Hormuz looks less like open sea and more like an Iranian customs counter.

tokenanalyst said:

Is was always like that, defense contractors and their suits and ties think tankers gaslighted and lied to military planners and the public about the efficacy for a long time, in the Gulf Saddam very limited Scud missile arsenal was able to bypass patriot defenses and was required special forces to hunt down the launchers, but everything was hidden and lied to public.

Click to expand...

1. Yes they lied about Patriot's performance
2. It was not well covered up, everyone knew the performance was bad, possibly 0% success rate (otherwise we would not be aware enough to have this discussion).

OK the Chad XJP DN,W meme is getting waaay overused by now:

Page 17 / 40

For reporting purposes, SM-2 is the antecedent by definition of the closest analogous system to SM-6

System SM-6
Quantity to Sustain 2,478

Click to expand...

If I understand this correctly, they're lumping in the SM-2 into the "SM-6" category for the purposes of "sustainment cost".
2,478 for SM-6 alone makes no sense since only 1,200-1,300 were produced so far with a planned total buy of 1,800, so far short of that number.
So that's probably where FPRI got their total 2500 number for SM-2,3 and 6 for.
That 8,500-8,800 number floating around for SM-2 is apparently wildly inaccurate and assumes every missile ever made got upgraded and maintained, apparently they're mostly rotting in depots needing overhaul or got scrapped - either way they're not part of the actively maintained SM missile pool of the USN.

The USN is down to about 2100 SM's in total after 3 days of Iran. Holy shit. That must mean that 20-30% of all VLS cells are permanently empty - there simply aren't enough missiles to fill the tubes. Yet alone reload much.
There must be evidence of them pulling missiles of ships coming in from finished tours and transferring them to outgoing ships?
And not only SM-3 and 6 but also SM-2 (which I thought they had plenty of).

Local Greek media reports that the USS Gerald R. Ford will leave the Red Sea and return to port in Crete next week.

Comes just a few days after the carrier suffered a fire in its laundry space.

sunnymaxi said:

Local Greek media reports that the USS Gerald R. Ford will leave the Red Sea and return to port in Crete next week.

Comes just a few days after the carrier suffered a fire in its laundry space.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2033869573716328661

Click to expand...

The 30 hour laundry fire that left 600 crew without bunks really stretches the imagination. This is supposed to be a warship, with damage control, going into a conflict zone. Yet a lint fire took 30 hours to put out?

Moonscape said:

The 30 hour laundry fire that left 600 crew without bunks really stretches the imagination. This is supposed to be a warship, with damage control, going into a conflict zone. Yet a lint fire took 30 hours to put out?

Click to expand...

Someone should tell Trump that it’s less embarrassing admitting that an Iranian missile or drone got lucky…

Airstrike footage on a police checkpoint. IRAN.

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY FISCAL YEAR (FY) 2023 BUDGET ESTIMATES
JUSTIFICATION OF ESTIMATES APRIL 2022

Page 311 / 664

Increase in funding for Standard Missile Weapons SM-2/6 Maintenance and Depot Spares due to purchase of additional Provisioned Item Order (PIO) spares procured to repair items. There is a two year advance ordering requirement of spare parts to reduce a significant backlog of SM-6 rounds needing recertification.

Click to expand...

Page 312 / 664

Increase in funding for the Standard Missile Weapons Maintenance (SM-2/SM-6) Non Depot due to inventory management
support, Integrated Logistics Support (ILS), flight analysis, obsolescence evaluations, and Ordnance assessments in support
of the increase in quantity of rounds going through the recertification process.

Click to expand...

Navy Fiscal Year 2023 Unfunded Priorities List Descriptions

Page 2 / 9

Funds industrial operations to service the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) Block I Non-Combat Usable Asset (NCUA) Inventory on an accelerated schedule to clear the current backlog of 125 total missiles.

Click to expand...

This was in 2023, this confirms that there was a backlog of missiles not ready to use since not only production rates are low, re-certification to keep rounds serviceable are also low.

I assume this is specifically only SM-6 without SM-2 lumped in tough.